Dr. Caroline Engel Purcell:

Mr. Hoyne mentioned a fabric first approach to retrofitting. One starts with an understanding of how the building is currently performing. We started a new project with Dr. Kinnane, who I believe was at the committee's last session, to measure the U-values of the walls of 50 different traditional buildings. There are different build-ups, thicknesses and materials. By doing that, we will have a better understanding of where we are starting. At a building I have been working on, we got an in situU-value measurement of 0.836 for one of the walls, which is far below the default 2.1 for a solid wall. If people think the situation is worse than it is, then they will over-insulate and not get the savings that they expect. People should understand the fabric first approach at the beginning of any project. Doing that, collecting these data and making them publicly available is a good first step to make sure that we do not do things that we regret down the road.